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How the new Apple Watch can help your workout

On Wednesday Apple released its new iPhone, announced the arrival of the AirPod and heralded a significant update to the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch is quickly turning into one of the must-have gadgets for the athlete who wants to exercise, track the exercise and still look good doing it.

The Apple Watch offers some neat features that can quickly become addictive and a part of your exercise routine. Here is a rundown of the features you might use most often:

Built-in GPS. Prior to the new Watch (series 2) position tracking was done by tethering the Watch to your iPhone. This means that if you were to exercise without your iPhone, the Watch would recognize the distance of your activity by essentially counting steps. Now, you can get more accurate location tracking because the GPS is right in the phone!

Heart rate sensor. Knowing how your heart rate trends over time and during a workout can be highly useful information not only for your own interest but also for medical purposes.

Swimming. We are most excited about the swimming applications in the Apple Watch. The new Watch is water resistant down to 50m which means you can swim with the watch! What does this mean? You can track what type of stroke you perform, how far you go, how many calories you burn, stroke efficiency and other analytics that can actually coach you on how to be a better and more efficient swimmer. We have written about how cadence is an important ingredient in running efficiency and the same can be said for swimming.

Breathing coaching. When your day is stressful and you need some time to decompress, the Watch can help you by encouraging deep breathing. You will respond refreshed and ready to handle what the world throws at you the rest of the day.

So give it a chance. We will be trying it out in the near future as well. This certainly seems less like a gadget and more like a lifestyle.